


Ritual Hunger

by sophelia_moon



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Aborted Love Confessions, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Blood, Canon Universe, Character Death, Character Study, Fortune Cookies, Fortune Telling, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Sick Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-20 23:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14271975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophelia_moon/pseuds/sophelia_moon
Summary: A drabble series for Quinx Week 2018.1. Yonebayashi Saiko is a fortune teller’s assistant. One day, she meets a melancholic stranger.2. Ginshi tries to live a conscientious life. Haru waits for him, wondering what life she is permitted to live.3. In a moment of panic, Mutsuki Tooru makes a different decision.4. Urie Kuki looks for his father.5. Where once there were four...6. You know you love a ship when...?7. A ghoul walks into a coffee shop.





	1. Second Hand Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This is the first part of a drabble series I'm writing for Quinx Week 2018. This installment is for Day 1: Work/Training Together; it takes place in an alternate universe.
> 
> The drabble title is taken from the song "Second Hand Faith" by Emilie Autumn. Additionally, the last line of this fic is a quote from Ishida, though not from the tg:re manga itself.

Saiko sits on a tree stump with a container of takoyaki and a bag of fortune cookies, watching the carnival fold itself back up.

Whereas during the day the carnival billows and roars, reveling in an overwhelming sensation of color, now in the setting sun it deflates and sheds its skin, revealing the calculating veneer lying underneath.

Elsewhere, her mother and brother are packing up their tent. Her mother had shooed Saiko away, telling her to make herself useful.

But Saiko didn’t feel like flitting around the lingering customers, even if the lighting flatters the soft lines of her body more than cold daylight.

She felt like gorging herself, but now her stomach roils. She spears the last takoyaki and eats it anyway.

She swallows dry. The sauce lingers on her tongue.

After a brief pause, Saiko reaches for a fortune cookie and cracks it open.

_Enjoy the good luck a companion brings you._

Saiko shoves the fortune back into the brown paper bag with its useless fellows.

“Poor fortune?” asks a soft voice.

Saiko jerks her head upwards. She meets the gaze of a man with an eyepatch over his right eye—he’s young. They’re around the same age, if she were to guess.

His body language is non-threatening, almost demure, but almost in spite of herself, Saiko is wary of the kindness radiating from his exposed eye.

Saiko springs up and onto her feet. She wishes she had something to do with her hands; she crinkles her trash bag.

“Maybe!” she laughs. “Maybe not. Do you want one?”

“A fortune?”

She’s about to hand him one before she remembers that she’s an idiot.

“I—well.” She’s laughing again. “Saiko’s a fortune teller, actually. Well, a fortune teller’s assistant.”

He slowly nods. “I see…it’s bad luck for a fortune teller to read their own fortune, right?”

“That would be bad,” she confirms. “Um—anyway. My family and I will be here for the next two days as well, if you would like to stop by.”

That much Saiko can manage. That much she’s told hundreds of people.

“Hm…I wonder. Can I have that fortune cookie anyway?”

Saiko blinks. “Huh? Why?”

“A fortune cookie from a fortune teller might be interesting, don’t you think?”

Even if she were the one to choose, it isn’t like any art or ingenuity would go into it on her part.

Even so, Saiko withdraws a fortune cookie, but stops short of placing it in his palm.

“If Saiko gives this to you, will you give her your name in return?”

His eye widens slightly, but like the ripples over a pond after the cessation of the wind, he settles.

“Mutsuki Tooru,” he says, and takes it gently from her hand.

***

Saiko leaves her mother’s tent with her cheek stinging. “Clean that up,” she’d said.

She has neither ice nor makeup, so she wanders the grounds as she is, searching for a pail and some water.

There’s an overgrown well several dozen meters’ distance from the flock of tents. Saiko shifts the vines and peers inside.

“Hello,” says Mutsuki Tooru. He grabs onto the back of Saiko’s dress so she doesn’t fall.

Her heart is pounding. “You scared me!”

“My apologies,” he says. “I looked for you, but I only saw an older woman—your mother?”

“Yes,” said Saiko. “You didn’t have your fortune read after all?”

He shrugs. “Perhaps another time.”

“Mutsuki-kun”—that’s what she decides, even though she’s usually less formal, more—“what do you think of this well?”

He examines it. “I think it can no longer serve its intended purpose.”

Saiko sighs. “Yes, I think so too.”

Mutsuki trails a hand along the edge. “It’s kind of mysterious, isn’t it? Like a wishing well.”

“Isn’t every well a wishing well?” Saiko regrets her tone as soon as she finishes speaking. She smiles harder.

“That’s very romantic, Saiko-san.”

She’s doubtful. “You think so?”

Mutsuki rummages through a pocket and pulls out two coins.

“I do,” he says. “Why don’t you make a wish?”

“I suppose,” Saiko says.

She accepts the coin he hands her. It’s a fifty-yen coin; the silver-colored copper surface is old and worn.

She throws it in the well and listens, but she doesn’t hear anything. Mutsuki does likewise and receives a similar result.

“So?” he asks. “What did you wish for?”

“It’s bad luck to tell!” Saiko cries. “Very bad luck! It’s a secret.”

That’s the first time she hears him laugh.

***

On the third day, it’s almost completely dark.

“You know,” says Mutsuki, “I have a small interest in it as well…fortune telling.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” says Mutsuki. “If you give me hair, money, and blood, I’ll read your fortune.”

Saiko cuts a lock of her hair with a pocket knife.

From the pockets of her cotton dress, she bestows on him a pile of coins.

Upon her wrist, she makes a small horizontal cut and watches the blood drip down.

Mutsuki takes back the knife and wraps her wrist in white cloth.

Saiko waits in silence.

At last, Mutsuki says, “Stagnation lies in your past, indecision in your present, and transformation in your future.”

“Transformation?”

He doesn’t answer her.

Saiko looks up at the night sky. She can’t see any stars.

“My mother is a bad person,” she tells him.

Mutsuki looks at her with compassion and patience.

“I’m leaving this place,” he says. “Tonight.”

“Then,” says Saiko, “I will go with you.”

 

_Saiko-chan often cried when she thought about her mother._


	2. Shalott

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This installment contains spoilers for tg:re chapter 55. It takes place in the canon universe; the chapter title is drawn from the song "Shalott" by Emilie Autumn. The last line is another quote, as well.

“Are you okay?” he would always ask her.

“I’m okay, I’m okay!” she would say, puffing out her cheeks and brushing away the dirt from her skinned knees.

Still, her brother could never resist running for a pack of band-aids.

***

Sasaki, Mutsuki, and Urie, all missing…

“It’s just you and me, Saiko,” Shirazu Ginshi says to no one. Saiko is upstairs in her room.

No doubt she has some food hoarded away. But where does that leave him?

Cup ramen, in all probability. But since he’s alone, maybe he could try being more adventurous?

 _If Haru were here, she’d encourage me,_ he thinks.

With the memories of Haru’s culinary experiments flashing through his mind, Ginshi swings open the fridge and peers at its contents.

He’s tempted to steal some of Sasaki’s wine, but he resists heroically and grabs some chicken instead.

Placing it on the counter to his left, he retrieves a knife and gets to work.

***

A long time ago, Shirazu Haru wanted to be beautiful.

She had a very specific idea of what that meant. She scoffed at princesses languishing away in their towers. She admired the heroines who swung swords and gave as good as they got, saving the day in the end.

But Haru didn’t grow up to be one of those girls. She grew up to be a patient file.

ROS: RC-cell over-secretion. Rarity: one in one-to-three million. Primary symptoms: formation of a kagune-like structure, extreme pain, nausea, regression of nerves, altered memories, degradation of the five senses…

All of that had been patiently explained to her when she had first been diagnosed. But for Haru, what those words boil down to is the massive growth protruding from her cheek, an uncontrollable and unstoppable mass of flesh. Its weight is such that it is held in place with ropes attached to the ceiling.

It blocks part of her mouth and makes it difficult to talk. She likes to save most of her energy for when her brother, Ginshi, visits.

In her world, reduced to four walls, she spends the majority of her time reading and dreaming. She regrets mocking and looking down upon the princesses from her childhood. At least they were important. They were wanted, sought after.

Haru looks out her window and thinks of the ocean.

***

Thirty minutes later, Ginshi had wandered off and burned the chicken.

It hadn’t been his _intention,_ it had just sort of…happened.

The gods of cooking failed to bless him, he supposes. Well, he still has to clean up the mess. After scraping portions of burned meat into the trash, he frowns at the pan before rolling up his sleeves and subjecting it to the cleansing power of soap and water.

He makes ramen. It’s nigh-impossible to screw up; he learned that a long time ago.

***

In the past, Ginshi told her:

“I’m going to have surgery.”

“Really?” Haru tried to move her lips upwards. “Not me?”

“Not you,” he reassured (disappointed) her. “I—I’m going to become a little like you, I guess. There’s this experimental surgery where a kakuhou is implanted in a human’s body—it lets you use the abilities of ghouls, if it works. But even if it’s not successful…there’s a lot of money in this, Haru.”

She focused her gaze on his face. “Will you be okay?”

“Don’t worry about me!” he said. “Focus on getting stronger, okay?”

They both knew there was no chance of getting stronger. There was only trying not to get worse.

And for that, she needed RC suppressants.

Enough to let Ginshi go off to undergo a dangerous operation with nothing but a wave and a smile.

***

(“If I could take your place, I would,” Ginshi had vowed once.

Would it be terrible of her to take him up on it?)

***

Haru knows she’ll die before she gets a chance to grow old, but she never imagined that Ginshi would die before her.

Ginshi’s unbeatable. The hero of the story can’t die—not before it’s over.

“Am I going to die now too?”

She’s told there’s a boy who will pay her bills from now on, but he’s no prince and she’s no princess.

She’s important to nothing and no one now.

 

_Shirazu-kun said that he wanted to go on a motorcycle trip with his sister._

 


	3. Castle Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here we are! This drabble contains spoilers for tg:re 155, although it centers around a canon divergence from much earlier in the manga (that chapter contained a flashback). It also includes discussion of gender identity where the point-of-view character is not especially kind to himself, so keep that in mind. Of course, I'd welcome critique on that aspect.
> 
> The title is from the song "Castle Down" by Emilie Autumn, and the last line is once more a quote.

Mutsuki Tooru scrubs hard at the white fabric under his hands, but the dark stain persists despite his best efforts. He had shrugged the shirt off his body immediately after his nose began to bleed and ran to the sink, but it looks like...

“It won’t come out,” he sighs. “I’ve got to throw it away.”

The sound of the door opening startles him, and he instinctively whirls around to look.

_Sensei._

“Ah—I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were in here,” Sasaki apologizes, but it’s meaningless.

He’s seen. He knows.

But all the same, Sasaki shifts his gaze away; with a sheepish smile, he places a hand under his chin and turns to leave.

_That reaction…so he won’t say anything? No, more than that, that was far too smooth. Almost as if…_

And with that thought, Tooru realizes the truth—or rather, uncovers the lie Sasaki had perpetuated from the moment he met him.

“Wait!” Tooru cries.

Sasaki waits.

“You knew from the very beginning, didn’t you?” Tooru says, betrayal bleeding into his voice.

After a moment, Sasaki’s eyes soften.

“I did,” he said. “I didn’t think it was something you wanted me to know, so I wasn’t going to say anything.”

Having torn through the twin gossamer webs of Sasaki’s lies, Tooru hesitates. He understands Sasaki’s words, but that— _kindness_ can no longer be maintained. He can’t go back to before the discovery of that deception, even if would be easier.

Even if it would spare him pain—he’s in pain now.

“Can we talk?” he says. Slow, measured.

“Of course,” says Sasaki. “Shall we go out?”

***

Unwillingly, as they leave the Chateau and begin to walk, Tooru finds himself inclined to forgive Sasaki.

Unlike Tooru, who lies only to protect himself, Sasaki’s intentions had been nobler. He had sought to prevent Tooru’s pain, not his own.

With that in mind, the bite of shock and agony didn’t feel as sharp and unbearable as it had only minutes before.

They walk in silence, only briefly breaking to order dango before continuing on their journey. The sweet flavor bursts in his mouth, a perfect complement to the beautiful, clear day. It’s pathetic of him to be cheered up by such a basic tactic, but he can’t deny that it’s working on some level.

Eventually, they find a bench far enough away from any would-be eavesdroppers and sit down.

What could he say? Could he really explain it all? His family, the cats…

 _No._ Tooru…didn’t trust Sasaki nearly that much. He didn’t trust that he himself would remain unscathed if someone knew the full truth about him and lies he told for the sake of his survival—to get up every day and simply function.

But maybe…he could share a part of the truth.

“After my family’s death,” he says at last, “I felt uncomfortable with the prospect of living as a woman. Well, I still feel that way now.

After what I’d just experienced, the police and the CCG didn’t have a problem accommodating me. Sometimes, it’s like my past doesn’t exist…as if it belongs to a different person.”

That’s right. A different person.

A crazy little girl who murdered the only family she had in the world.

Swallowing that thought down, he continues.

“I’m not unhappy with the life I live now,” he murmurs. “Despite it all…I may be no good as a Quinx, but I don’t want things to change. I don’t want the others to look at me differently.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Sasaki promises. “Mutsuki-kun…you know if you ever want to talk, I’m here for you.”

“Do you see me as a woman?” Tooru challenges. He’s far from forgiven Sasaki—for the last _two years,_ damn it, _damn it—_

Sasaki meets his gaze evenly. “I see you however you want to be seen, Mutsuki-kun. As the person you’ve always been.”

_I doubt that._

“Thank you,” he says, getting up, “but I need to go and think about things on my own for a while.”

“I understand,” Sasaki says.

As Tooru walks away, the back of his neck prickles with the weight of Sasaki’s thoughtful gaze.

 

_When Mutsuki-kun grabs the hem of his shirt, he shuts away his feelings._


	4. Across the Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urie's turn! ...It took everything I had in me to use his given name. This is a really strange/abstract fantasy AU, because that's what I felt like writing. And yet, I still managed to squeeze in some spoilers for tg:re 132.
> 
> The Emilie Autumn song of the hour is Across the Sky; your dose of quotation will be administered at the end of the drabble.

Urie Kuki wakes in shards of mirror.

He can feel them press against patches of bare skin, prickling, but they fail to cut. He gets up.

One did manage to pierce him. He plucks a piece from his tongue and allows it to fall from his hand. The small _clink_ is as pleasant as the red of his blood.

Kuki is on a journey, so he must not linger. He moves on.

***

He speaks to shadows with gaping mouths.

They twirl around a ballroom that is both full and empty.

“I’m looking for my father,” he tells them.

A rabbit looks at him with sorrow in its eyes, as if about to speak, but a moment later it darts away, dodging the shower of knives flung after it.

SHADOW WITH A YELLOW ROSE.  Hehe. Isn’t Green such a liar?

“What (that doesn’t answer my question)?”

Their voices are hard to hear, as if they were travelling through water. Kuki strains his senses.

SHADOW IN A BLUE DRESS.  Not true, not true. Isn’t that you, Yellow?

“Green” doesn’t speak; they left to chase after the rabbit.

 _Just a bunch of hypocrites,_ Kuki thinks.

The shadows cease dancing and stir.

SHADOWS.  Meat…real meat…ah, I’m so hungry…

Kuki decides it would be best to run away.

***

He walks through a garden full of thorns.

The sky is gray and overcast, projecting a dismal gloom upon the land.

He trails his hands along their points. His fingers are unmarked, but white roses sprout in his wake.

Lonely. He’s lonely. He wants to find him soon.

 

(In the dusk of another world:

“We must find a way.”

“And if there isn’t one?”

“Then we’ll just become terrorists, okay?”

A boy makes a promise to a girl, but he hasn’t changed a bit.

He’ll keep clinging to what doesn’t deserve to be held onto—until the bitter end.)

 

“I have very good friends,” Kuki tells the rabbit and its black-and-white patches. It had been cowering under a bush.

It knew nothing about the person he was looking for.

“Have you told them that?” the rabbit asks.

“Yes,” said Kuki, “but I won’t see them for a while. This is something I must do on my own.”

“I see, I see! You’ve come far. Far enough that it’s okay to stop walking, isn’t it?”

The rabbit’s fur is falling out in clumps. Kuki averts his eyes.

“That’s not true. I haven’t stopped. It’s too soon to give up.”

“I hope that’s true,” says the rabbit. Its words have become distorted. “Would you like any help?”

“That’s alright,” he says politely.

He’s addressing the sack of meat on the ground. The scent is mouthwatering.

“I have made my choice.”

 

_Whenever Urie-kun paused, he was thinking about something._


	5. Reunion in Triple Sonata

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, did you know that a drabble is exactly 100 words long— *shot*
> 
> In any case, have some "traditional" drabbles. These take place in the canon universe and are essentially a series of glimpses into tg:re 155 and 156, so...major spoilers for those chapters.

SAIKO

Mutsuki is holding a knife, teeth clenched. Urie calls out— _stop!_ Just stop.

They (Urie) talk to Mutsuki. Higemaru and Hsiao split off, and Saiko follows after Urie.

Mutsuki and Urie trade blows. Saiko has to do something, she has to _act—_

She throws her entire strength into her attack, but it’s no good. _My megaton Saiko punch...was traced?_

In an instant, she flies backwards, unable to stop herself from crying out.

She’s on the ground—winded, helpless, _useless._

Mutsuki isn’t looking at her.

“Urie,” Mutsuki says, a sad smile on his face…

“I couldn’t care less if you die.”

 

TOORU

“I don’t want to kill you,” Tooru says, “but I guess I have no choice.”

“Mucchan…” Saiko says. Her gaze is pained. “The leader and I…we’ve both been so worried about you. But because of that huge thing popping out of the ground, we didn’t get a chance to find out if you were safe. It bothered me…I’m so glad you’re alive.”

Beneath her soft words, scores of missed chances lay.

“I don’t get it. What do you want to do, Mucchan? What do you want us to do?”

“It’s okay, Saiko,” he says. “This will all be over soon.”

 

KUKI

“What’s the matter, Mutsuki? You were the one that said you have to kill people to stop them.”

 _God,_ it hurts—but he has to stay focused.

Mutsuki clenches his teeth. “That kind of shit is so annoying.”

A second later, Kuki is launched into the sky. Gravity takes over, and Kuki drags his kagune along the ground to bring himself to a stop.

“He threw…” he mutters involuntarily, but there’s no time to think: Mutsuki caught up with him.

“I don’t need to stop you. I just need to get past you.”

He has no choice but to fight.

 

HARMONY

 _“Saiko loves you, Mucchan!_ You big dummy!”

Saiko is not a pretty crier, but that fact is the furthest thing from her mind right now. All she wants to know is _why…_ when Mutsuki is…!

Kuki picks up the knife that Saiko had knocked to the ground. He holds it up to Mutsuki’s face with the blade pointed towards the sky.

“See? Get it through your head. We’ll be here to stop you as many times as you need (I swear it, Shirazu).”

For a moment, Tooru stands there, frozen.

“Urie…Saiko…”

In Saiko’s embrace, Tooru feels his eyes water at last.


	6. Rondo of Endlessly Unfulfilled Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The penultimate drabble(s)! Spoiler warning for tg:re 154 and 162. (Or: "Urie Kuki" and "love confessions" don't belong in the same stratosphere.)

CANON DIVERGENCE

After Kuki left Sasaki’s room, he met up with Mutsuki. As usual, however, the topic of conversation isn’t exactly pleasant.

“Saiko, she…I heard her kagune suddenly went out of control,” Mutsuki says.

“We don’t know why, but it looks like she’s recovered. In any case, I told her to stay put and get some rest.”

“I heard that most of the ghouls have gone to see Sasaki.”

“I see,” says Kuki, intelligent as always.

“He is very loved,” says Mutsuki. His face is turned away.

“He’s not the only one,” says Kuki. His heart is pounding. “I…Mutsuki, I’m in—"

 

FAE

“So you know the truth,” Mutsuki says.

His expression is twisted; something dark is hidden in the back of his eyes.

“I don’t care,” says Kuki, because fuck it, he _really doesn’t._ “Even if you are a changeling child, it’s not like I ever knew the person you replaced. You’re the one I care about, and I’m not going to let you go off and do something foolish.”

Half in the shadow of the woods and half standing in the dappled sunlight, Mutsuki hesitates.

Slowly, he drops the knife, scattering a few droplets of blood across the rot of toadstools.

 

SCI-FI

The Academy cadets whisper that the shed on the edge of campus is haunted.

Kuki doesn’t believe it, but the corpses of cats found there are real enough.

(Two years ago, Kuki’s father died and he became a penniless orphan. Going into the military was the only logical choice to secure a free education; besides, this way, he has a chance to…)

Raising his ID card and calling a self-driving cab, Kuki can’t help but glance in the direction of that shed—spying his classmate, Mutsuki, in the process. Kuki traces the lines of his coat as Mutsuki walks away…

 

TRUE CRIME

A body’s been rolled into the morgue. That’s when it starts.

No time to wait for the report; Kuki and his partner, Mutsuki, have to begin the investigation, no matter that’s it’s three in the morning and they’d both rather be asleep.

As Kuki holds back a sigh, Mutsuki pauses and looks at him.

“You’re not alone, Urie-kun,” he says, presence steady for all his tiredness. “Let’s take this one step at a time.”

Something rises in his throat, but he swallows it back.

With a simple nod of acknowledgement, he steps forward, ready to resume his work once more.

 

 

BONUS: DRABBLIZATION OF MY DREAM TODAY 12/21/2017

Kuki raced after Mutsuki, leaving the rest of the Quinx Squad behind. There was no time to worry about them.

By the time he got to the drab elevator and ascended, his patience was at a limit.

_I couldn’t care less…if you died._ Mutsuki said that, but for Kuki…

When he entered the room, he found Mutsuki waiting for him alone. White hair, white clothes—eyepatch.

“You just won’t give up, will you?” he said. His demeanor was calm.

“Never,” said Kuki, and for the first time in his life, the words in his heart and his voice were aligned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bonus drabble is based off my dream diary entry from that date, occurring in the interim between chapters 154 and 155. My recollections are pretty much exactly what the following text states...it's funny, because I'm not that attached to Mutsuki/Urie, although I enjoy it as one-sided on Urie's part. Enjoy the mysteries of Past Me's subconscious. 
> 
> My Dream Today 12/21/2017:
> 
> I basically made up a self-indulgent version of how :re chapter 155 will go. The Qs were involved at the beginning, but it’s all a little hazy and the confrontation ends up fizzling out on both sides. However, U goes after M, going up an elevator to reach him. U gives a huge speech that ends with “I’m in love with you.” M is deeply skeptical, but decides to show U what he’s been up to. Which is basically hanging out with a rebel group away from the conflict? Idk. At some point, U says he’ll never give up until M kills him. I think M begins to understand U’s sincerity, but I wake up before anything is resolved.


	7. the world has gone mad today and good's bad today, and black's white today, and day's night today

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the belated conclusion to this series, complete with role reversal AU and a musical theater-related title (yes, it's a bad joke on the day 7 prompt, and yes, I have no self-control). The quotes at the beginning and end are from the first chapter of tg:re.

_Slipping through the crowds, feeding on human flesh…they appear human…but they are_ not.

In this world, what can be said of the existence of ghouls?

The world despises them. The life it holds precious has no room for ghouls; no, it must crush ghoul-kind utterly.

No matter how stained the cesspool of humanity becomes, it must represent purity at all costs.

He knows this. He knew from childhood that the most he could hope for was survival.

(That’s why, once, when he was very, very hungry—)

Even so, the wretched ghoul known as Mutsuki Tooru enters a coffee shop called :re.

The owner, Kamishiro Rize, busies herself in her usual elegant manner behind the counter, but it isn’t her Tooru’s come to visit.

“Hello, Saiko-chan,” he says after sitting down. “I’m surprised to see you awake.”

In the dimmed, golden light, the bags under her eyes stand out. Even so, she tosses her hair and huffs, pushing strands of her pigtails behind her shoulders.

“Of course!” she proclaims. “Saiko is the hardest worker here! She’d never miss a shift!”

Like this, it’s easy to imagine that nothing has changed. That Urie will soon appear, with all his polite scorn; that Shirazu and Haru will walk in, smiling and ribbing each other good-naturedly.

But Shirazu is dead, and Urie and Haru are with Aogiri Tree now.

And as for himself? He’s no one. A drifter: unable to truly hate or laugh at this life.

“I’m sure,” he says—companionable, easy. It’s the correct response.

Saiko doesn’t believe him, of course, but flounces away to get his usual order regardless.

The chime of the doorbell catches his attention. He turns his head, and he, along with everyone else, must resist betraying a sudden rise in tension.

Of the two investigators who walked in, one Tooru knows well while the other is a stranger to him.

Washuu Kichimura, the rebellious half-ghoul son of one of the most infamous ghoul families in Japan—now Nimura Furuta, brainwashed soldier of the CCG. An incurably strange person, yes, but all the same Tooru would not have wished his present fate upon him, for Kamishiro’s sake if for no other reason.

To Tooru’s surprise, Kamishiro steps out to deal with them herself. _It’s probably fine to leave her to it._

Saiko hands him his coffee without a word to indicate she knows him; that too is for the best.

After a few minutes of false calm, the stranger gets up and leaves the café.

Once an appropriate amount of time passes, Tooru follows him.

Standing in an alleyway, the dove cuts an unassuming figure, for all that he wears their uniform—black hair springs up from his roots, fated to eventually overtake the white. But when his gray eyes glance in Tooru’s direction, Tooru knows he’s caught.

“No need to be afraid,” the dove says. “I just want to talk.”

Tooru takes a few steps out into the open. “And why should I believe you?”

“I know that everyone who works there are ghouls,” he says, making a sharp gesture in the café’s direction. “Nimura doesn’t. And I’m not planning to do anything about it, either.”

“Is that so,” says Tooru.

He thought it might come to this, though he hoped otherwise. Now, how could he get out of this unscathed and still protect the others?

(Of course, if he had no other choice, he could just run, like a selfish, good-for-nothing—)

“That’s right, Mutsuki-kun,” he says, his smile thin. “I am Sasaki Haise. It is my intention to take over the CCG and destroy it from the inside—and to do that, it would be useful to have some outside help.

You’re interested, aren’t you?” he continues. “After all, your entire family was murdered by investigators…”

Tooru swallows. The lingering taste of coffee has become bitter.

He gives in.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I am.”

 

_They are called…ghouls._


End file.
